The Ghost of You

Chapter 5 - Cai's POV

The Dawsons are bad people. That was something I knew before the bruja told me. That was something I stood by even before I met Saahar. When I first met her I didn't think she was someone worth my attention. However, unlike the other girls in the school, I had to speak to her before she noticed me.

At the end of my first Maths lesson, people came up to me to introduce themselves - by people, I mean the whole class. Well, everyone but Saahar. While everyone had already packed up, she remained at her desk with her headphones in. I liked how dedicated she was to education. I liked how she didn't act the way everyone else did. I wanted to speak to her - she was the only one I wanted to come and introduce themselves.

So, in the next lesson, I made it clear that I wanted her to. When she arrived at her desk, I smiled at her. She saw, but she didn't smile back. She put her headphones on and opened her revision guide, acting like I wasn't there. Since my first attempt failed, I tried again the next day.

 Instead of smiling, I waved. She saw, but she ignored me once again. So, waving and smiling wasn't working. She wanted nothing to do with me. I knew she knew my last name, but at that time, I didn't know hers. I don't think I would've acted differently if I did.

A week later, I didn't even attempt to greet her. She wanted nothing to do with me and I had to accept that. I was going to forget about her - at least I wanted to. Once she sat down on her desk, I tried to look down at mine so I wouldn't get distracted by her presence. However, the fact she kept looking through her back quickly caught my attention.

 I turned to her as she anxiously pulled her curly hair to one side. She had forgotten something - not something that was easy for her to forget. She dropped her bag to the floor before planting her head on her desk. She was annoyed. She's cute when she's annoyed.

I knew she had forgotten her revision guide. The amount of times I saw her reading that book you would think she had memorised it from front to back. I quickly picked up my backpack and took mine out. I looked at it nervously thinking over what I was about to do. There was no way she could ignore me now.

I placed the book on her desk which instantly made her sit up. She looked at the book surprised before looking at me. Seeing her dark brown eyes instantly made me nervous. She signed as she held her hand on the book.

"Cairo, right?" she asked. Her voice was soft. It was cute. I nodded with a warm smile. She's talking to me. She was actually talking to me. I couldn't believe that she was actually talking to me.

"Castillo?" she questioned, turning her whole body to face me. She crossed her bare legs, pulling her pleated black shirt to cover her thighs. I nodded.

"Saahar, right?" I said. I already knew that. I didn't need her to confirm it. I remembered her name from the time Mr Colin told me to sit in the empty desk next to her.

"Dawson" she said bluntly, "Saahar Dawson". Her face fell flat as she revealed her last name. She took the revision guide and placed it back on my desk before resting her head on hers. 

Now I knew why she wanted nothing to do with me - she knew my last name. Because I now knew hers, I couldn't be friends with her. There wasn't a possibility of Dawson and Castillo being friends. It only made me hate my last name even more.

I should've hated her, but I couldn't. But, because I knew she hated me, I had to act like I hated her. So, in Maths I made her my rival. It wasn't hard, I had always been good at Maths. But I knew it annoyed her. She hated how many questions I could answer right. She hated how many times I corrected her. She hated the fact she was no longer the top student in the class.

But, I liked seeing her annoyed - she was cute when she was annoyed. The way she'd squint her large eyes. The way her cheeks would go red every time I corrected her. The way she made me smile every time her dimples would come out when she got something right. She was cute - like a Canario ( a bird).